European Investment Bank

For well over a decade, the cornerstone of the European Investment Bank’s sustainability funding policy has been the conviction that the financial services industry has a pivotal role to play in spearheading the battle against climate change. As the EU’s climate bank, it has also consistently recognised its responsibility for developing best practice, which in turn helps promote enhanced environmental and social standards across the global financial community.

When investors are presented with a new financial instrument, their instinct is generally to focus on pricing, relative value and liquidity. This is a natural response, especially in a low yield environment in which every basis point counts.

With its push to embrace its role as the European Union’s climate bank, the European Investment Bank is set to play a key part in the alliance of multilateral development banks committed to fight climate change.

The European Investment Bank has set out a strategy for lending that will support the EU’s goal of decarbonising the economy by financing investments that cut emissions, combat climate change and support alternatives to fossil fuels.

Since the issuance of a pioneering Climate Awareness Bond (CAB) by the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2007, the global Green Bond market has expanded at an impressive pace, with total issuance passing the $500bn mark in the third quarter of 2018.

If that sounds like an easy question to answer, consider the hypothetical case of a lender backing a scheme to retrain adults as computer programmers, or accountants in a city like Katowice, the capital of the Polish region of Silesia

There are close to 5 million motorbikes and scooters in the Vietnamese capital city, Hanoi. To put this figure into perspective, it means there is more than one motorbike or scooter for every two residents of the city, which has a population of about 7.8 million